"Let no freedom be allowed to novelty, because it is not fitting that any addition should be made to antiquity. Let not the clear faith and belief of our forefathers be fouled by any muddy admixture."
-- Pope Sixtus III

Friday, September 03, 2010

...there was a funky and punky surf band that called themselves The Heritage Sponges...except when they changed into a Mexican surf band [wrestling masks, etc.]...then they called themselves Los Langostas De Roca...

Yes, kiddies, that's the title of the latest album from The Carolina Chocolate Drops, who will be playing in York, PA on Wednesday September 8 at The Strand.

They play genuine American music, which means music that is a combination of poor black folks' music and poor white folks' music. You probably know it by the names "blues", "folk", "bluegrass", or "jazz". [And by jazz, I mean real jazz. Look up Nick LaRocca and you'll see what I mean.] Heck, some might even call it "country". After all, Hank Williams [Senior, of course.] had more in common with Robert Johnson than Eric Clapton did.

Their music is so fine, I won't even notice all the leftards in the audience who think they get it.

President Obama may have experienced his Walter Cronkite moment over the economy.

Responding to Cronkite’s reporting from Vietnam four decades ago that the only way to end the war was by negotiating with the North Vietnamese, President Lyndon Johnson was reported (though never confirmed) to have said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.”

Now President Obama appears to have “lost” New York Times liberal economic columnist Paul Krugman. Krugman, who enthusiastically supported the president’s redistributionist and stimulus plans, has bowed to the reality that they are not working. In a recent column titled “This is Not a Recovery,” Krugman took issue with the president and Vice President Joe Biden that we have experienced a summer of economic recovery. “Unfortunately, that’s not true,” he wrote. “This isn’t a recovery, in any sense that matters. And policymakers should be doing everything they can to change that fact.”

Krugman asked an essential question: “Why are people who know better sugarcoating economic reality? The answer, I’m sorry to say, is that it’s all about evading responsibility.”

Hee-hee. This is really fun, kiddies. But seriously, Krugman and all the other petit-fasciste wannabe dictators know they will vote Communist when 2012 arrives. No matter what.

Speaking of 2012, are the Mayans racist for saying the world will end before President Hussein gets inaugurated for the second time?

It is that, and more. The administration is so locked into its left-wing, “tax, borrow and spend” ideology that it has become like someone trapped in a cult: unable to escape and endlessly repeating the same mantra.

In a speech last week to central bankers and economists in Jackson Hole, Wyo., Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke acknowledged the economy is fragile, especially in light of the government’s latest report, which showed the weakest quarterly growth in a year. He added that high unemployment poses a serious threat. Still, Bernanke tried to sound optimistic by forecasting some pickup in growth in 2011 and beyond.

Optimism not based on reality is false hope based on wishful thinking. One might as well ask a high-performance engine to run at peak level after several of its cylinders have been disabled. It is impossible, no matter how shiny the paint job.

An economy burdened down with debt because of too much government spending, a health care law that will add new and unknown burdens, expiring tax cuts that will take more money from the private sector for government to waste and abuse, and a stock market unsure and thus unable to fuel the economic engine to propel us out of this recession, is not a “summer of recovery,” but a winter of discontent.

The solution is not a “Star Trek” approach in which we must go where no one has gone before. We know what works and what must be done. Social Security and Medicare must be reformed; government programs that have failed, or are obsolete, should be scrapped; military spending designed to enhance re-election prospects for some members of Congress, while doing nothing to improve the military, must be ended, and people should be asked to return to the attitude of previous generations that all of us, including government, must live within our means.

Writing in U.S. News & World Report, publisher Mort Zuckerman takes the Krugman view a step further by calling the administration he once supported “The Most Fiscally Irresponsible Government in U.S. History.”

Zuckerman writes: “People see the stimulus, fashioned and passed by Congress in such a hurry, as a metaphor for wasted money. They are highly critical about the lack of discipline among our political leaders. The question that naturally arises is how to forestall a long-term economic decline.”

The answer is for the Republicans, so eager and so likely to regain power in the House and possibly the Senate in the coming election, to expose the administration’s sugarcoating of reality and get out the bad-tasting medicine. The good news is that by swallowing fiscal responsibility, we will all be better off in the end. But can Republicans withstand and prevail over the Democratic demagoguery that will predictably be heaped on them? They’d better, or they don’t deserve to lead.

A divisive plan to build a casino near the site of the Civil War’s tide-turning Battle of Gettysburg is in the mold of many other communities that have successfully meshed gambling with historical tourist destinations, the developer told state regulators Tuesday.

Many thanks to Slow Eddie Rendell and the Party of Blasphemy, Buggery and 'Bortion for bringing us this wonderful tax on the poor and ignorant that can help fascist criminals get re-elected.

I don't know if charitable pledges are legally binding documents, but it doesn't really matter. File this one under cutting off your nose to spite your own face.

From Lancaster Online, which is the internet front for Lancaster Newspapers, Inc., the home for many an Amishland totalitarian "writer":

A Pennsylvania Academy of Music trustee drove to the Pequea home of donors William and Karyn Regitz on Monday to deliver an ultimatum:

Pay the $150,000 still owed — and past due — on their $240,000 multiyear pledge or get sued.

The Regitzes said they still wanted to see PAM's business plan, which they had requested two weeks earlier, to help them decide what to do.

The trustee didn't have the plan.

The Regitzes didn't write the check.

And PAM filed suit against them within hours.

"We feel we'd be putting our money into a big, dark hole. If we could see a viable business plan, which we've asked for and haven't gotten, we'd feel differently," Karyn Regitz said.

Before and since it filed for bankruptcy in May, PAM has pointed to $1.2 million in unpaid pledges from 28 donors as a key to its financial recovery.

It has urged those donors who are on track with their payments to accelerate their schedule.

Those who are behind in their payments were warned several times that PAM might sue to collect.

Monday, for the first time, it did. More suits will follow, said PAM attorney Jacques H. Geisenberger Jr.

"We have a duty to maximize our assets for the benefit of our creditors," he said, declining to say which donors PAM will pursue.

In a separate proceeding, U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Jean FitzSimon this week allowed PAM to occupy space in Liberty Place, as a lease gets finalized.

PAM will begin moving there Monday and start classes there Wednesday.

As of Thursday, 123 students had signed up.

Geisenberger indicated the figure could grow substantially because "the phone has been ringing off the hook with inquiries."

This spring, PAM had more than 300 students.

The dispute between PAM and the Regitzes symbolizes the schism that's opened between the academy and some of its previous supporters and leaders.

The Regitzes gave their pledge, payable in $40,000 annual installments, to PAM to fund a new building.

In return, PAM promised to put their name on the building's community room.

PAM completed the lavish $32 million building at 42 N. Prince St. in June 2008, winning widespread praise for investing heavily in downtown.

But the following summer, as the recession slashed its income while its operating expenses stayed high, its financial health soured.

William Regitz, a PAM trustee and retired Intel computer company division manager, and the rest of the board resigned amid a clash with PAM's founders over what to do.

Ultimately, this May, PAM not only filed for bankruptcy but lost the building, too.

To Geisenberger, PAM held up its end of the bargain, despite the recent departure from the center-city landmark.

"We built the building. We occupied the building. We put their name on the room. What else do they want us to do?

"We tried to retain the building, but it wasn't economically feasible," he said.

Karyn Regitz saw it differently.

"The money we donated was for the building. They don't have the building," she said.

"They want to use the money for operations. We didn't give the money for that."

Although the Regitzes had stopped their pledge payments, the couple continued to support PAM in other ways.

Most recently, they hosted a pool and barbecue party for 40 foreign students attending PAM's Vivace festival last month.

"We want to support them in ways that make sense," said Karyn Regitz, who served on numerous PAM committees over the years.

But until they see what they consider a persuasive business plan, that support will exclude a six-figure check, she said.

"We just feel we'd be flushing it. We've worked really hard for our money. We don't want to throw it away. We'd rather give to a viable organization, a sustainable organization," Karyn Regitz said.

She predicted that the lawsuit would backfire on PAM, hindering its ability to attract new donors and hurting the efforts of all local nonprofits trying to do so.

"They're going to have a very difficult time getting donors when they have a history of suing them.

"It's not only going to hurt them, it's going to hurt every nonprofit in the county … ," she said. "If people are afraid they'll get sued if circumstances change, it won't encourage them to open their wallets."

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) - Antoine Dodson's angry, head-shaking TV interview about a rape attempt against his younger sister in her bed has turned into an iTunes chart-topping song.

The song plays off many of his lines, including: "Y'all need to hide your kids, hide your wife and hide your husband, 'cause they raping everybody out here."

In the first 2 1/2 weeks of sales, the song selling for $1.29 had about 60,000 downloads and at least 25 million views on YouTube. The musicians who put it together are splitting the proceeds with the 24-year-old Dodson.

He says he plans to use the money to move his family out of public housing in Huntsville, Ala.

Amen to that, Brother.

Still, some suggest that the college student and his family are being exploited and that his online rant plays to African-American stereotypes.

Pay no attention to those professional racists, Mr. Dodson. They don't care if little girls get raped, as long as it doesn't threaten their power.

Benito Insane Okhrana uses Alan Simpleton [a well known Repansycan psychopath from days gone by] to deliver the glad tidings of hope and change.

Washington's Other Newspaper [I know, I know, but it is fun to watch these cretins justify anything in the name of left-fascist power.] "reports":

Hundreds of thousands of Vietnam War veterans are receiving disability compensation for diseases normally associated with aging - not combat - because of the possibility of a link Agent Orange exposure. The diseases in question range from diabetes, for which 270,000 veterans receive Agent Orange-related checks, to erectile dysfunction. "And taxpayers may soon be responsible for even more: VA said Monday that it will add heart disease, Parkinson's disease and certain types of leukemia to the list of conditions that might be connected to Agent Orange." The total cost of these new payments are estimated at $42 billion over 10 years. Budget watchers say the evidence is too thin to spend so much money on the possibility of a connection.

"The irony (is) that the veterans who saved this country are now, in a way, not helping us to save the country in this fiscal mess," said Former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson, himself a veteran and the former chair of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee. Simpson now co-chairs President Barack Obama's deficit-reduction commission.

Dr. Jacquelyn Kotarac was a very intelligent, attractive woman and a gifted doctor, estranged boyfriend William Moodie said.

That's awfully nice of him.

In fact, her attention to detail and connections within the medical community resulted in Moodie getting a new heart valve, Moodie said Wednesday evening. She listened to his chest, noticed something was wrong, and drove him to UCLA Medical Center to meet with the chief of cardiothoracic surgery.

That doctor agreed with Kotarac and the heart valve was replaced, Moodie said.

"She was absolutely brilliant as a doctor," he said.

Brilliant!

Kotarac's badly decomposed body was found Saturday wedged in the chimney of Moodie's house. Bakersfield police believe she had been there about three days, since trying to force her way into the house on the evening of Aug. 25.

With all due respect, does anyone ever decompose well?Was she well-accessorized?

Wait a minute...What? She tried to force her way in?

Kotarac, 49, showed up at the house that night and Moodie, not wanting a confrontation, slipped out the back door when she arrived, police said. [Smooth. - F.G.] She apparently used a shovel to try to force open the back door of the home in the 4300 block of La Mirada Drive, police said.

With all due respect, doesn't she sound like a stalker? Or worse? If she was a guy trying that shovel trick, she would have been shot and killed.

Moodie, 58, spent the night someplace else, according to police.

Where he hid from his brilliant, compassionate, on-again, off-again sex partner.

At some point, Kotarac used a ladder to get to the roof, removed the chimney cap and slid down the flue feet first, police said. Her body was found stuck near the bottom of the flue. [So close and yet so far. - F.G.] The coroner's office reported she died from being unable to breathe and her death was an accident. Police said Moodie was never a suspect.

Moodie declined to talk about his relationship with Kotarac or what their status was as a couple when she showed up that night.

Golly, I'll bet she just wanted to talk about their relationship. And the shovel.

But he's tired of people saying negative things about her and said it's time to leave her alone.

It is much easier to respect the dead. For one thing, you don't have to worry about them breaking into your house and caving your melon in with a shovel.

"She made a horrendously bad decision and paid for it with her life," Moodie said.

Just one bad one, Billy? Was it the chimney decision? Or possibly the shovel one? Maybe it was refusing to fall out of "love" with you.

He remembers Kotarac, whom he knew for three to three and a half years, as a tremendously giving person who even provided free medical service to some people. Kotarac, a 1991 graduate of UCLA Medical School, was an internal medicine doctor who worked out of an office on San Dimas Street.

As far as hobbies, she was a lifelong fan of equestrian events and owned horses when she was younger. Moodie said he and Kotarac attended a horse jumping competition in Las Vegas, and she often went to see horses race.

Horsies are pretty.

Although her busy schedule often didn't allow it, Kotarac also loved to travel, Moodie said.

Police said Kotarac had an airplane ticket to go to Amsterdam with Moodie the Friday after she went missing. [On again. - F.G.] Moodie and an office assistant of Kotarac's searched his house Thursday and reported her missing to police because her car and purse were there.

Definitely off. Again.

Moodie spent the night at his home Thursday and then went on the trip. Police searched the home Friday evening, but found nothing.

Memo to all you murderers out there: You have approximately three days [somewhat longer in colder climes like Canada] before the local constabulary can smell your rotting victim.

It wasn't until a woman checking on Moodie's fish tank noticed a foul odor Saturday and inspected the chimney flue that Kotarac's body was discovered.

Fishies are pretty, too.

That smell is going to linger, kiddies.

Moodie said he's been staying in hotels since returning to Bakersfield and he won't live in the house. He said he'll have it repaired -- the chimney had to be dismantled to remove the body -- but he imagines there will be some issues selling the home with the notoriety it now has.

Huh. Imagine that...lower property values.

Moodie said it's been a difficult time, and Kotarac's death has had an enormous impact on him.

Not as enormous as she probably wanted to have. [See shovel part of the story, above.]

"I feel this incredible sense of loss," he said. "It's very hard to accept the fact that she's gone."

LST 325, a Navy transport that saw action at Normandy in 1944, arrived in Pittsburgh Wednesday morning on its first visit to the city where many of its sister ships were built during World War II.

As they have all along the ship's route from its home base in Evansville, Ind., crowds turned out to greet her as she cruised up the Ohio and moored near Heinz Field, where she will remain from Thursday through Tuesday for tours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The two World War II relics saluted each other with blasts from their deck guns.

The LST -- short for Landing Ship, Tank -- is among the last of its kind in the world and normally a floating museum in Evansville. But twice a year she goes out, and this time her journey took her to Pittsburgh, which has a special connection to LSTs.

Although LST 325 was built in Philadelphia, several hundred of the massive crafts were built by Dravo Corp. on Neville Island and by American Bridge Corp. in Ambridge.

"As a young boy, I saw one being launched," said Gary Augustine, 71, a historian from Leet who served aboard LSTs in the 1960s and is writing a book about them.

During the war his family lived in Ambridge and his father worked there briefly, helping to build LSTs. American Bridge built 123 of the 1,051 assembled for the war effort.

"They were literally building these ships while they were still designing them," said Mr. Augustine. "The idea was British, the design was American."

And the result was a decided victory for the allies, as LSTs ferried troops, tanks and equipment to far-flung battlegrounds in Europe and the Pacific. LST 325 participated in the invasion of Sicily in 1943 and was off the Normandy coast on D-Day. All told, she made 44 trips between England and France, shuttling supplies and men to the beaches and transporting wounded soldiers and German prisoners back to England.

Response to the LST's trip has been overwhelming. Crowds of people, young and old, have turned out along the route since she left Evansville, snapping pictures and taking videos. About 10,000 people toured the ship in Wheeling, W.Va., and more than 1,000 showed up to greet her in East Liverpool, Ohio.

And when the ship arrived at the Emsworth Dam Wednesday -- the last of the locks on the 800-mile journey -- a crowd had already gathered despite the fact that it was 5:30 a.m.

"This," said one man watching yesterday on the North Shore, "is history."

WASHINGTON (AP) – Private employers hired more workers over the past three months than first thought, a glimmer of hope for the weak economy ahead of the Labor Day weekend. But the unemployment rate rose because not enough jobs were created to absorb the growing number of people looking for work.

James J. Lee, environmental militant, slain at Discovery building after taking hostages

From Washington's other newspaper:

James J. Lee divided the world into good and bad. According to his writings on a Web site he created, people were bad, especially "parasitic" babies.

If only he had used his genius to kill babies instead of defenseless cable channels!

Animals and bugs were good, Lee wrote. But war was bad, along with global warming, pollution and international trade.

No! War good! War kill omnivores!

As for civilization?

The environmental militant who was killed Wednesday at the end of a tense hostage standoff at Discovery Communications headquarters in downtown Silver Spring, termed it "filth."

Lee, 43, who once threw money to bystanders as a protest along a Silver Spring street and who believed that the world would be better off without people, was shot by police after the almost four-hour standoff. Police have not publicly named Lee, but several local and federal law enforcement sources identified him as the gunman.

Lee held a grudge against Discovery, viewing the network as a purveyor of ideas he considered environmentally destructive and staging protests outside its headquarters, according to authorities and court records. Yet he got little farther than the lobby of the vast complex while the company alerted its thousands of employees and urged them to stay in locked offices and then evacuate using a designated stairwell.

Lee, whose environmental creed was spread across the Internet in manifestoes and blog posts, was killed at 4:48 p.m. after he stalked into the building with a handgun, took three hostages and later pointed his gun at one of them, said Montgomery County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger.

The incident, in the headquarters of the global television corporation just outside Washington, sent hundreds of employees streaming for safety into the afternoon heat without their purses, wallets and other personal items. It snarled traffic and riveted media audiences. [I'm glad the America-Last Media has its priorities straight. - F.G.] Police said Lee had four makeshift explosive devices strapped to his body, and was wielding a gun. He entered the building about 1 p.m.

Police worked through the night searching the complex at Colesville Road and Georgia Avenue, trying to determine whether two backpacks and two boxes that seemed to have been carried into the building by Lee also were bombs.

Thursday morning, the building was given an all-clear, Montgomery County police said. Police spokeswoman Angela Cruz said officers were still at the complex, gathering evidence as part of their investigation.

About 1,900 people work at the Discovery building.

Cruz said Wayne Avenue remained closed to traffic Thursday morning between Ramsey Aveue and Georgia Avenue. Pedestrian access was restricted on the sidewalks on the Georgia and Wayne avenue sides of the Discovery building.

Yes! Yes! We want to hear more about the effect the death of this Obama voter had on suburban traffic!

Thursday, September 02, 2010

That's right, kiddies, the only morning drive show run by sports fans for sports fans is coming to the Sporting News Radio Network on weekday mornings from 6 to 9 AM Eastern. The clown who "replaced" him on Fox Sports Radio, noted racist Screaming A. Smith, just got whacked by my local Fox station and probably won't be on the network much longer.

From Czabe's blog:

It is indeed a new and beautiful day in sports radioland.

I'm back.

After an 8 month hiatus from the nationally syndicated sports radio airwaves, I am back. And the boys are coming with me. Scotty, Solly, and the dearly departed Al are all back from the radio dead.

See? That wasn't so bad, was it?

Sporting News Radio, as a subsidiary of Mission Media Group of Scottsdale, Arizona, has hired me to host their morning drive shift from 6-9 a.m. from our Washington D.C. area studios.

Oh yeah, football season is going to be fun again kids.

I'd like to say that I just knew it all along. That I was certain this would happen within a year's time, and that the show was just "too good" to not get snapped up by somebody.

But I didn't know that. And I had to assume, that perhaps my run had simply ended.

You guys did have faith, however. Yes faith in me, with perhaps a splash of naivete in how ridiculously stupid the sports radio industry can be sometimes.

As you know, I don't preen at myself in the radio mirror much. I take sports seriously, not myself. I know I am good, but lately I have wondered if "good" really matters any more in our industry.

So when the programming genius at FSR decided 7 years of unmitigated success from me and the guys was all he could handle, I wasn't all that heartbroken. It's the business, what can you do? I did my best. I was proud of the show, and our run lasted a pretty good long while. So truth be told, I was looking for a new lifestyle, and some new opportunities.

Then, I got everybody's emails. That's when things changed.

It wasn't just the sheer volume of emails from you listeners, it was their staggering depth. I am talking about 1500-word-plus emails describing just what it was that made the show so meaningful to them.

You guys remembered a billion more details of segments we did, or moments we had, than I ever could.

The scope of people who wrote to me, was amazing. Age ranges all the way up to 80, and a surprising number of people who claimed they were not even sports fans in the least!

It certainly changed my mind a bit. This wasn't just about me losing a job. Millions of YOU were losing their ride-to-work buddies. It was truly traumatic to many of you.

I was even shocked by some industry calls I got as well. The great Steve Sabol of NFL Films called personally. As I had missed his original call, I returned his call on a break. It rang through to his assistant. I waited on hold. Then, the booming voice of NFL films came bursting through. "Czabe! What the HELL is going on down there!?"

He said he had heard they canceled the show, but just NEEDED to find out directly from the source. I had a chat that bordered on un-seemly manlove because of how much I admire Sabol's work and genius. He concluded the call, by saying matter of factly that I won't be off the air very long. It was very kind.

But I also thought: "Yeah, but what the hell does HE know? I work in this business! He doesn't!"

So as I settled in to being a morning sports radio consumer myself, I quickly began to appreciate how dreadful the national landscape is in that regard. The guy who replaced me is, well, how shall I put this: he's there... for now. And that's all I'm going to say.

And the two other guys on the Disney Sports Channel? Holy regurgitated sports facts, Batman!

I would listen and think: "Do these guys realize, that NOBODY TALKS LIKE THIS when they are talking about sports?"

Which is my only core philosophy about the medium. Good sports radio, is a CONVERSATION. And the more honest, probing, funny, interesting, lively, and no-bullshit you can make that conversation, the better.

That's it. It's that simple.

When I broadcast, I just try to talk to my guys, and talk to the audience, and let the microphones melt away into nothing. Like they aren't even there.

So here we go again. I am so, so, so pumped for this chance. The fellas are equally charged up. They are my faithful engines of creative brilliance. And we're going to do all of what we did before, and then some.

As you may know, Sporting News Radio was once upon a time, One On One Sports Network based out of Chicago.

I got my national radio start there. I remember it like it was yesterday. I rolled into Chicago on August 12, 1994. The day of the F'ING BASEBALL STRIKE that would kill the World Series.

I didn't know a SINGLE PERSON in the city of 6 million. I was rooming temporarily with a friend of a friend I had never before met. My Honda Accord was stuffed to the ceiling with all the crap I owned and could drive in from my parents place in DC.

And it was raining.

Welcome to the big city, kid.

At the time, One On One Sports was the only real "network" doing 24/7 sports programming. ESPN Radio did nights and weekends, but hadn't yet ramped up fully into a round the clock deal.

Over the years, ESPN grew into the beast that it is, and then Fox Sports Radio appeared around 2000. One On One got marginalized a bit, and sold to Sporting News. I think it's fair to say, they became the 3rd horse in the national network race.

Recently, however, long time radio executive Clancy Woods got some investors together to purchase the radio portion of Sporting News. His clarity for the industry, and appreciation for talent is tremendous. I couldn't be luckier to work for a guy like this, because I know he "gets it" like you and I "get it."

This network is going to be a force. You can book that one.

Clancy likes to say that he is "distribution agnostic" about the network and its properties, of which I am now one. By this, he means he'd like to get the longform spoken word product out there in as many ways as possible.

Of course, terrestrial radio affiliates are primary, as is satellite radio, but other distribution channels are here and growing. Things like internet radio and direct audio streaming from websites like, well, www.sportingnewsradio.com.

I can't say for sure, where my show will be heard right away, but suffice to say I will be keeping you posted on all that stuff as I get my facts straight.

On satellite, a bizarre twist remains from the XM/Sirius merger. Apparently - and don't take my word for it, because I may be wrong - if you have an original XM receiver and buy the "Best of Sirius" package, you STILL can't get Sporting News Radio. However, if you have a Sirius package, you CAN get Sporting News Radio on Channel 127.

What does that mean for those of you like me, who have an Acura TL with a WELDED IN XM brand receiver? I don't know, but it doesn't look good right now. Maybe it means I'll have to buy a new car with Sirius installed, and one that doesn't have deer guts all up in its radiator.

I'll have to do more legwork on how and when you could get SNR on an XM unit.

If you have a Sirius receiver and kept it - like I said you should back in January - congrats. We'll see ya'll in September.

In the meantime, we hope to loop back and try to scoop up as many of our excellent market partners we had under the "old" mothership. And I'm talking Richmond, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, et al. We want you back. We're going to do whatever it takes to make that happen.

I even hear rumblings that we might add the show in the DC market. It might just be scurrilous rumors, but then again it may be happening. Stay tuned on that one too.

Thanks again for your most genuine letters and thoughts, and bear with us as we get everything ramped up at our new home.

Monday, August 30, 2010

New diploma program for home-schoolers builds to the study of college-level Latin and Greek

by Daina Savage - Lancaster Sunday Screws

Of course, studying the classics does not mean you will learn how to think properly, but it sure beats earth sciences, "women's studies", and bully management.

Don't tell Sawyer Neale that Latin is a dead language.

The 14-year-old home-schooled scholar from Elizabethtown is an enthusiastic reader of ancient texts, eager to point out how useful, and alive, they are in everyday life.

"Even in this conversation we're having now, most of the words we're using come from the Greek and Latin," he said.

In an animated classroom at the Lancaster Center for Classical Studies, 910 Marietta Ave., between declining Latin nouns and reciting the Greek alphabet, Sawyer and his peers extolled the virtues of delving into the study of classical languages.

These home-schoolers are part of a rigorous new diploma program at the center, which culminates in college-level coursework in Latin and Greek.

"Besides the fact that they help you with learning any other languages, including English, they are especially helpful with problem solving," said 16-year-old Rowan Byrne, of Lancaster. "And reading about the history of Rome, their customs and politics, you can compare it to current events and see that often they made more sense."

Sawyer and Rowan? Really, people? Really?

"They make learning everything a lot easier," agreed Laura Cray, of Mount Joy, who is now in her sixth year of study at the center and eager to apply her skills to deciphering and mastering Arabic and Mandarin.For centuries in Europe, and in colonial America, the mark of a well-educated person was a deep knowledge of the classical languages and texts.

Just colonial America? Methinks La Savage needed to do some research before writing that sentence.

That has fallen by the wayside, as many schools today may feel more pressure to prepare students to ace the SAT than to lay the foundation of a true liberal arts education.

Heck, most schools have given up on reading and writing.

Center founders Peter and Laurie Brown are combating this superficiality with a new diploma program aimed at re-establishing substantive study of the classics to the heart of a curriculum in order to develop critical thinking and foster a love of lifelong learning.

"We don't want Greek and Latin studies to be looked at as a foreign language or an enrichment on the side," Peter Brown said. "We see it as the vibrant core of a whole educational program: central and rich and limitless in possibilities."

"There's no question that the study of Latin and Greek supports every other area of study," Laurie Brown added. "It's almost impossible to understand English literature without understanding its origins, or to understand the New Testament without reading it in its original Greek, and then reading it again in Latin and observing the difficulties of translating it. This education builds a complexity of thought that you can't achieve otherwise."

The Browns said they believe the study of Greek and Latin serves to cultivate a student's powers of observation, analysis, reasoning and method.

"The most original and decisive works in the broad fields of history, literature, mathematics, science and religion are products of the Greek and Latin languages," Peter Brown said.Exactly.

The Browns have developed a demanding, progressive course of study embraced by parents as it inspires their children.

"I enrolled my kids at first because I thought Latin would open doors for them and help train them for the SATs, but soon I realized it will help them with their whole lives," said Nikki Byrne, of Lancaster, whose home-schooled children, Rowan and Declan, have taken classes at the school for years.

"Studying Latin and Greek is so rich in how they make you think and conceptualize," said Claudia Helman, of West Hempfield Township, whose sons Christopher, 14, and Benjamin, 9, are enrolled at the center.

Although preparatory studies in grammar can begin as soon as a child can read well, usually by the fourth grade, the program begins in earnest at the start of seventh grade with a curriculum translating Vergil [Acceptable, but uncommon in American English. Hmmm... - F.G.] and Sophocles, Homer and Plato. Throughout their studies, students re-enact scenes from "The Illiad" in dramatic readings, debate the politics of Cicero, reflect on the histories of Plutarch, and compare and contrast biblical translations.

The Browns developed the state-sanctioned diploma program in part as a service to home-school families intent on demonstrating their rigorous studies to prospective colleges.

"Our students have typically been accepted at the college of their choice, where they often find themselves better prepared than their classmates," said Peter Brown, who after earning his doctorate in Greek and Latin was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium. Laurie Brown's doctoral work was also in Latin and Greek, and she did research as a Fulbright fellow.

Both have taught at the college level and at lower levels for years before founding the center in 2000. They were home-schooling their own children when other home-schooling parents asked them to teach theirs as well.

Approved by the Pennsylvania Department of Education as a home education association with the ability to issue a state-recognized diploma, the center requires its graduates to, at minimum, complete the full Latin curriculum of seven courses, in addition to the state's graduation requirements.

A typical Latin or Greek course meets for an hour, twice a week, for 30 weeks. Students are expected to devote three hours of work at home for each hour of class time. Students who begin Latin in fifth grade are typically ready to begin reading Vergil or Caesar by the beginning of eighth grade. Upper level courses in Latin and Greek are college-level.

Students enrolled in the diploma program are charged tuition for the core curriculum Latin and Greek classes, as well as for various optional supplementary courses.

Complementary curricula in classical literature, writing, speaking, history, geography, mathematics and natural science are developed in close relation to the core curriculum. Further instruction in these topics may be provided by parents or other sources.

"We see this diploma program as the culmination of what we've been doing all these years, brought together in a final meaningful way before our daughter goes on," said Jane Cray, whose daughter, Laura, has been a student at the center for six years.

"Her classes here have become the bedrock of our home-schooling curriculum. Somehow its fingers reached into all educational areas — history and mathematics — not just language. The discipline that you learn is applied to everything that you are studying."

Katcha Neale, of Elizabethtown, whose sons, Sawyer and Saben, are in their fourth year at the center, says the new diploma program is a way to integrate all of their coursework, "plus it puts a light on Latin and Greek that they deserve."

Rather than thinking of these languages as dusty and ancient, Neale said they serve to illuminate vitally and vibrantly all areas of study.

It's exactly the idea the Browns wish to impart. Their mission statement says that a "classical education has nothing to do with the idea of 'antiquity' " but rather "it is concerned with eternity … [preparing students] for every eventuality."

Amen to that.

Neale said she believes her sons are discovering just that. "This program speaks to what I think education is all about," she said. "This discipline hasn't crushed their love of learning, but instead served to enhance their thinking and understanding."

• For more information about the Lancaster Center for Classical Studies, contact Peter and Laurie Brown at 397-3223 or lccs.org@verizon.net.

The writer's daughter has taken after-school Latin classes at the center.

Note that disclaimer.

The bottom line remains the same, kiddies: Get your young 'uns out of the Government Indoctrination Centers before they start writing love poems to the Great High-Yellow Father.

About Me

First of all, the word is SEX, not GENDER. If you are ever tempted to use the word GENDER, don't. The word is SEX! SEX! SEX! SEX! For example: "My sex is male." is correct.
"My gender is male." means nothing. Look it up.
What kind of sick neo-Puritan nonsense is this? Idiot left-fascists, get your blood-soaked paws off the English language. Hence I am choosing "male" under protest.